


Aim and Fire

by thevaliantdust



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:43:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevaliantdust/pseuds/thevaliantdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m going to make you something lovely”</p>
<p>Well it was a lovely idea at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aim and Fire

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> Hunter's Hex(aka Vex&Percy) trading weapons and seeing how it goes

_“I’m going to make you something lovely”_

Well it was a lovely idea at least. Try as she might, Vex must not have been able to keep her thoughts from flashing across her face, because Percy’s lofty grin slipped a few notches.

“You don’t like it?” He asked, reaching to take back the arrow he’d just presented with a flourish. His eyes were already glazed over with recalculations, his head a mess of turning cogs trying to figure out where he went wrong.

“No, darling of course I do!” Vex defended a split second too late. She pulled the arrow out of his grasp instinctively, making a show of admiring the craftsmanship. Which was excellent, no doubt about it. She knew without having to check that it was perfectly balanced, the fletching was delicate and exquisite. If she took it down to the archery range now it would likely fly true and do exactly what it was made to do… whatever that was. But it wasn’t often one fought in an archery range.

Percy looked at her with his knowing gaze, the one that always went right through her. He cocked an eyebrow, a clear plea to dispense with the act. _Let’s not make fools of us both with this charade_ , he seemed to chide her. Vex sighed, biting her lip for a second as she contemplated how to approach the topic.

“It’s just… well with all the mechanisms and the… it’s not very practical-”

“It’s entirely aerodynamic,” Percy shot back, “I’ve done the calculations, if anything it’ll optimise the rotation-”

“You’ve never actually used a bow, have you?” Vex interrupted.

Percy blinked a little indignantly, clearly taken aback by the unexpected challenge.

“Of course I have. I know how to shoot, all noble children take archery lessons, it’s practically a rite of passage…”

Vex wondered if he was deliberately puffing his chest out like a startled bird, or if that was his unknowing reaction to the injury of his noble pride. His voice had taken on the slightly haughty quality it always had when he talked about his upbringing among the gentry, usually when he was lecturing Keyleth on matters of leadership and responsibility. It was weird to have it directed at her this time around.

“- Yes, darling, I’m sure you know how to shoot,” she cut in, “you’re an excellent marksman. But there is a difference between a gun and a bow, especially in the heat of battle. It’s not just a matter of aiming and firing,” she noticed Percy growing hot under the collar at her flippantly mimed gun impression and quickly backtracked to keep the peace, “I mean, I’m sure there are a lot of intricacies involved and all, I’m just saying with archery there is a sort of finesse, so much relies on the feel of it, you just can’t…”

She trailed off as she noticed Percy leaning his weight on his back foot, arms crossed defensively. At first she thought she’d managed to really offend him but then she caught the tiny smirk hiding on the corner of his lips.

“So, what you’re saying is that I’d be useless with a bow in battle? That it’s just _too complicated_ for my _tiny_ brain to handle?” His nobility-bred flare for the dramatic was out in full force, and Vex couldn’t help herself- she had to rise to the occasion.

“Well, yes, although not in so many words. Wouldn’t want to confuse that _tiny_ brain of yours…” Her posture shifted to mirror his, though she didn’t try to hide her smirk.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out,” he furthered the challenge, flicking his eyes up at the bow slung across her back. Not one to back down, Vex swiftly drew the bow and handed it to Percy’s outstretched hand in one fluid motion.

As his hand closed around it, feeling its weight with a bounce, his other hand drew his pistol, swinging it around to pass it, grip first, to a startled Vex.

“Oh this ship sails both ways, darling,” he provoked, noting her surprise, the blatant use of her favoured epithet a clear indication of goodwill. “After all, if all I have to do is… aim and fire?” he quoted her questioningly, “then it should be a breeze for an expert marksman such as yourself.”

A heady tension surrounded the two of them, each holding the other’s weapon, neither willing to break the gaze first. Vex would be lying if she said she didn’t find something intoxicating in the amicable antagonism between them.

“Just you wait, darling,” she winked at him, now smiling in earnest.

Percy let out a breathless, involuntary chuckle. “Oh believe me, I’ll be thrilled to see how this turns out,” he drawled, pseudo arrogance radiating off him like a child about to win a schoolyard wager.

“Guess I’ll see you on the battlefield,” Vex half-whispered, a promise and a challenge. She took two steps forward, pushing the shaft of the arrow flat against Percy’s chest. His fingers came up to grip it instinctively, and if she took a split second to relish the brush of his skin against hers, well, she didn’t let it show.

Instead she smiled coyly, looking up at him endearingly but with a sarcastic glint to her eyes. “Let me know when you’ve figured it out,” she breathed hotly against his ear, giving another shove of the arrow against his chest to make her point clear. “I’ll be happy to give my notes.”

Not giving him time to respond, she brushed her shoulder past him pointedly and kept walking, fighting the smile creeping across her face. Somehow things with Percy always turned out so… unexpected. Her fingers caressing the smooth barrel of the gun, she thought, for the first time in a while she didn’t mind that word so very much.


End file.
